Music festival continues city's reformation

Thursday

Jan 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Imagine a potential future marketing campaign: "Lexington, destination for music lovers." Fans of specific genres, such as Americana and roots music, descend upon the city for a weekend festival that highlights North Carolina singers and bands. The main concerts take place at a new amphitheater that resides where a Lexington Home Brands plant used to be in downtown. Other concerts featuring musicians take place at various locations throughout the year. Restaurants and hotels bustle with customers during the special events. Visitors enjoy the free WiFi and variety of stores found downtown.

Imagine a potential future marketing campaign: "Lexington, destination for music lovers." Fans of specific genres, such as Americana and roots music, descend upon the city for a weekend festival that highlights North Carolina singers and bands. The main concerts take place at a new amphitheater that resides where a Lexington Home Brands plant used to be in downtown. Other concerts featuring musicians take place at various locations throughout the year. Restaurants and hotels bustle with customers during the special events. Visitors enjoy the free WiFi and variety of stores found downtown.Time will tell whether such a dream could become reality, but the first North Carolina Music and Arts Festival showed that people will visit the city to listen to music. The festival took place Friday and Saturday at High Rock Outfitters and the Edward C. Smith Civic Center. Co-owner Chris Phelps and general manager Brittany Wilson of High Rock Outfitters helped spearhead the inaugural event, which by all accounts was a success. Starting a new festival holds many challenges, but organizers will learn what worked well and what needs rethinking and make improvements for the next festival, which Wilson promises will happen.High Rock Outfitters has provided a regular slate of entertainment at its location on North Main Street just off the Square. The only downside to HRO is the small space it has to offer. That's why the civic center was also used for the festival. The City of Lexington continues to explore uses for the property it bought from Lexington Home Brands off South Railroad Street. One possibility has been razing one of the former furniture manufacturing plants and building an amphitheater. That could provide opportunities for many different types of activities downtown and could be utilized by existing events such as the Barbecue Festival and BBQ Capital Cook-Off.Some new events take off and others don't. Organizers never know how an event will be greeted by the public until the first one takes place. One promising aspect of the music festival involved a willingness by city leaders to accept new guidelines to cater to the crowd. This meant serving alcohol at the civic center, which can help draw attendees (and, it must be noted, can also potentially create some problems, too, although that wasn't the case with the music festival).Lexington continues to evolve from its manufacturing past. The downtown area remains vibrant with very few empty storefronts. The city recently turned on a WiFi network in the downtown business district, and many users of smartphones and laptops are already taking advantage. The N.C. Music and Arts Festival became part of the evolution and can show others that well-planned, new ideas can quickly establish a foothold in the city.